African Maritime Cabotage: A Lever for Economic Independence and Development in Africa
Author : Pascaline Odoubourou, Port and Maritime Management Specialist
INTRODUCTION
Maritime transport is the main means of transporting goods to and from African countries with a coastline. These goods, whatever their characteristics, volumes or sizes, are transported by ships belonging to large foreign shipping companies that serve African ports.
This dependence on foreign shipping companies, which have the means and the transport capacity for intra-African transport, raises a number of concerns, in particular: the autonomy and economic sovereignty of African countries, regional connectivity, high transport costs, long transport times, and so on.
In order to remedy these problems, it is imperative that an African Maritime Cabotage (AMC) system be put in place.
In the early days of navigation, cabotage was the safest way for ancient sailors to go from port to port without losing sight of the coast (https://leshorizons.net/cabotage/).
Maritime cabotage, also known as Short Sea Shipping (SSS) takes place along the coast of a continent or between islands.
According to the EU, Short Sea Shipping is defined as “the movement of cargo and passengers by sea, between ports situated in geographical Europe or between those ports and ports situated in non European countries having a coastline on the enclosed seas bordering”. Moreover, Short Sea Shipping activity includes “the domestic and international maritime transport, including feeder services along the coast, to and from the islands, rivers and lakes. The concept of short sea shipping also extends to maritime transport between the Member States of the Union and Norway and Iceland and other States on the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.” (https://www.shortsea.gr/en/nma/)
In Africa, however, the concept remains non-existent. In this article, the author attempts to sketch out a definition of African Maritime Cabotage (AMC) as “the carriage of goods and passengers by sea between ports located in the same African country, within an African sub-region, an African region or the African continent, not forgetting the African islands“.
Although this African Maritime Cabotage system does not yet exist, it is of crucial importance for … , read this article originally published on the World Maritime Academy website : https://e-wma.com/our-blog/
